Walter Hagen, Bobby Jones, and the Rise of American Golf. Chapter 9: "Completing the Cycle," 1930
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Olivet Nazarene University Digital Commons @ Olivet Faculty Scholarship – History History 2000 Sir Walter and Mr. Jones: Walter Hagen, Bobby Jones, and the Rise of American Golf. Chapter 9: "Completing the Cycle," 1930. Stephen Lowe Olivet Nazarene University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/hist_facp Part of the American Popular Culture Commons Recommended Citation Lowe, Stephen. "'Completing the Cycle,' 1930." Sir Walter and Mr. Jones: Walter Hagen, Bobby Jones, and the Rise of American Golf. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Sleeping Bear Press, 2000. This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the History at Digital Commons @ Olivet. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship – History by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Olivet. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 356 CHAPTER NINE "Completing the Cycle," 1930 1 The Hagen-Kirkwood Pacific tour was not scheduled to begin until February 1, so Hagen spent most of January working on his golf instructional-comedy short, which included Leo Diegel, as well as Mack Sennett (who also directed) and actresses Marge Beebe and Jean Fay. He and Diegel were so busy with the film's production that they both missed their tee times in the Long Beach Open. As Golfers Magazine put it, Hagen did not "movie" fast enough to satisfy the tournament's officials. On February 1 he and Kirkwood left San Pedro, California, bound for Honolulu, then New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, China, and Japan. Just before embarking, Hagen told reporters that he would use the unprecedented tour to sharpen his game for the summer's major events; the team planned to be back in time for the U.S. Open. As the reigning British Open champion, Hagen also hoped to make a lot of money in the South Pacific. Things did not go that well. On February 24, after several matches in Hawaii, Hagen- Kirkwood boarded the Arangi for New Zealand. En route, the ship's passengers experienced a mild outbreak of small pox, which forced a three-week quarantine and the cancellation of about half of the duo's March exhibitions. Moreover, when Hagen and Kirkwood finally reached Sydney, Australia, and began their tour in earnest, they discovered that Aussies were not much inclined to purchase tickets for mere exhibitions. That was of particular concern to Kirkwood, who reportedly had a contract with Hagen guaranteeing Sir Walter $16,000 for the tour. Near the end of the trip, however, Hagen generously "tore up" his contract with Kirkwood and agreed to 357 split the receipts fifty-fifty, so that both men "barely made expenses." i But if his first grand tour of the Pacific did not pay off as hoped, it was still an enjoyable time. On March 19 the "globe-touring" professionals won two matches in Adelaide, Australia; Hagen played well and seemed to have his game in shape. Beyond his competitive successes, he enjoyed traveling through the Fiji Islands, bartering for pearls in the Philippines, hunting kangaroo in Australia, and meeting both the Prime Minister of Australia and the Emperor of Japan. On June 8, following a three-week stay in Japan, Hagen-Kirkwood gave a private exhibition for Emperor Hirohito in Tokyo at the Shinjuku Imperial Garden links. Hagen presented the Emperor with a set of golf clubs, and the Emperor reciprocated with an engraved gold cigarette case. Hagen fancied himself something of a golf missionary. "Golf was in its infancy in Japan at the time of our first visit," he wrote. "Our tour undoubtedly inspired many of the young professionals and amateurs to work harder at their game." In all, Sir Walter played fifty-three matches in Australia, China, and Japan and spent fifty-eight days at sea. On June 21 he and Kirkwood returned to North America aboard the Empress of Russia , arriving in Victoria, British Columbia, with a "carload of Japanese kimonos and other trinkets" for their friends. ii Two interesting things involving Hagen had occurred while he was on tour. First, by late April Americans could "see and hear" Sir Walter in "Match Play." The "great short- feature talking comedy" was billed as a "double treat" of "good, wholesome fun [and] championship golf." Second, on May 14 Hagen's lawyers brought suit against the Rochester Red Wings baseball club. Hagen had always claimed to have lost a large sum in his attempt to purchase the team. Specifically, the suit charged that the ball club had not returned to Hagen $8,500 of his 358 down-payment. The Red Wings, led by Warren Giles (whom the St. Louis Cardinals had installed as president), fought Hagen's claim, and it would take another six years to resolve the matter. iii The timing of Hagen's action against the Red Wings suggests that he, like so many others, had felt the "hard times" and needed to play all of his financial and legal cards. It is impossible to know exactly what Hagen's motive was in suing the ball club. In fact, he did not mention the proceeding in his autobiography (except that he lost $37,500 in the failed arrangement) and never actively involved himself in the case, opting instead to let his Rochester lawyers take care of the matter. As for his own financial situation, it is likely that Hagen was sufficiently solvent. To be sure, his Pacific tour had been economically disappointing, and by now he had probably spent the $3,500 payment for his appearance in "Match Play"; nevertheless, for the last several years Hagen's material resources had not depended on competitive earnings or even on non-golf product endorsements, which were undoubtedly still lucrative for him, but rather on the annual subsidy he received from the L. A. Young Company's sale of Walter Hagen Ultra golf equipment. As of 1930 the Ultra line was doing very well, endorsed and played by Horton Smith, Craig Wood, and, of course, Sir Walter himself. Like most other consumer products, golf equipment had changed significantly with the rise of mass manufacturing, and the L. A. Young Company was on the cutting edge. Most notable was the development of steel shafts, uniformly produced so that each club in a set looked and felt the same. Ultra clubs boasted "high-carbon, spring steel shafts; deep-faced, powerful heads; and scientific matching and balancing." Ultra irons had more powerful "compact blades," and the new Hagen ball insured "longer carry and absolute accuracy." Beyond that, the Ultra line included a unique concave-faced sand wedge. 359 Although eventually outlawed by golf's authorities because it "scooped" (or double-hit) balls out of hazards, the Hagen sand wedge was the rage for several years. Indeed, the Ultra line sold thousands of sets after 1928, providing Hagen a healthy income for the rest of his life. iv Some traditionalists, of course, disliked the modern equipment because gone forever were the days when each club in a golfer's bag possessed its own shaft flexibility, weighting, balance, and look. In the place of Calamity Janes, Jeanie Deans, mashies, spoons, and the like came putters, drivers, five-irons, six-irons, seven-irons, three-woods, and so on. But like the "Bounding Billy," matched sets with steel shafts made the game easier, more accessible, and thus more popular. In one sense, though, the old-timers were correct; the game had changed, and the new equipment precluded much of the creative shot-making skill that golfers had to develop in the days of individualized, idiosyncratic club-design. At any rate, the Ultra royalties helped soothe Hagen's loss of Robert Harlow as manager. By 1930 the famous Harlow-Hagen team had formally broken up, and on May 1 Harlow became the PGA's full-time Tournament Bureau Manager. The break with Harlow is difficult to analyze, except to say that it seems the split was mutual and involved no significant hard feelings. Certainly Hagen was looking to down-scale his competitive activities; moreover, the PGA desperately needed a full-time event coordinator, and Harlow was a natural to fill the position. Whatever the motivations, the Hagen-Harlow separation, along with other events, signaled the devolution of Hagen's competitive career. v Sir Walter's seventeenth-place finish in the U.S. Open was another sign. In fact, the 1930 season did not include any flashes of Hagen brilliance comparable to his winning the British Opens in 1928 and 1929; some suggested that he had been relegated to "has-been" status, that his 360 vision was blurring, and that he needed glasses. Hagen called such observations "bunk." vi Determined to come back yet again, Hagen improved to sixth place in the Canadian Open, finished fourth in the St. Paul Open, and took another sixth place at the Western Open. He made headlines in Detroit when he fired 66-67 in rounds preliminary to the Western Open. Hagen's best finish of 1930 was runner-up in the St. Louis Open (where a young "midget golfer" from Texas listed as "Bennie" Hogan withdrew). On the final day, he showed up at the first tee twenty-five minutes late, "faultlessly clad in white plus fours and shirt, and deep blue stocking and tie, [and] with the aggravating insouciance that has broken down many opponents in other golf finals." Of course, a runner-up in the St. Louis Open hardly constituted another comeback. The most visible evidence of Hagen's competitive decay was his failure even to qualify for match-play in the PGA Championship, the event which he had once owned. Still, in November he was again named captain of the 1931 Ryder Cup team.